Tuesday, July 17, 2012

I'm behind for the first time, but not feeling too badly about it because I've been taking detailed notes each day so that everything is ready once I am done with our vacation week at the end of June. I had either the brilliant or misguided idea to devote a two page spread to each of the full days of our trip because I took so many pictures and collected so much stuff. It's taken me longer to put it together but already I am so glad I decided to do it. It's great to have in essence a mini book done within my Project Life binder.

Several nights I wrote blog posts at night on the netbook back at the rental house. These came in handy when I went to do these pages because for several I literally copy and pasted and the journaling was done. To keep a consistent look and help tie all the pages together I tried to stick to a few supplies, like papers from Scooter's Vacation by Imaginisce. I ended up adding some more goodies from Simple Stories's Summer Fresh and 100 Days of Summer because I thought they blended well together, as well Soup Labels from Jillibean Soup plus some bits and pieces from my stash. Because this is such a long post I am not going to go into as much detail as usual and while I don't think anyone will have any questions, don't hesitate to ask if you do!

We rented a house in Northern Michigan with my family. It's nicknamed the Round House because of it's shape. I put pictures taken inside and around the house from various times throughout the week onto one spread and insert.

There was a crazy stairway in the house, which always made me feel a bit dizzy whenever I had to go up and down it. I spent all week trying to get a good picture of it and the sunken living room. That was also so unique, but odd to sit on carpeting! Needless to say E loved both features.

The right side shows more of the crazy touches from the 80s, like the fabulous painted wood panels and mirror decor in my brother's room. There wasn't a pool at the house but along with the rental came pool privileges at the clubhouse. That was one nice pool, it was heated and like bath water!

The insert is more pictures of the house, just so we can try and remember the inside and wooded outside.

On our first full day we went to Petoskey and walked around the downtown and park by the Lake Michigan. We saw two exhibits with local artists or local inspirations like the Bay View homes and nearby Mackinac Island.

We ate at a cute restaurant and I wrote about our meal in the insert and put the menu on the other side of the page protector.

Here is the right side of the Petoskey page, when we went down by the water. It was sunny and the cool with a breeze, perfect for site seeing.

Day 2 was our biggest outing, when we went to Mackinac Island, which requires a ferry ride both ways. E loved sitting on the top of the boat with Daddy on the way back.

One of our first stops on the Island was at a butterfly house and I was a lot happier with the attraction then I thought I would be. It was really cool when one landed on my Dad. I took a bunch of butterfly photos and used them to make a little old school collage, ie cuting down actual photos! Now that I do that digitally so much I thought it was funny as I mentally complained about how much work this all was while I was working on it.

I collected a lot of brochures and maps, things I always like to hold onto. I stitched up my own custom insert to hold four of them. two in each pocket back to back, for the ferry ride, the fort, and the pastie shop we got take out from. I wanted to jazz up the edge a bit so I covered it in washi tape and repunched the holes.

Next to the brochure insert is another with the butterfly guide we got from that stop and then I added another restaurant review for Darrow's Family restaurant. We ate there after a long day on the Island, it specializes in comfort food which all tasted great!

Photos from my Dad's camera are on the back of the restaurant review insert and more pictures from Mackinac Island, most from visiting the historic fort are on the left side. I am a big history buff so it was exciting to hear from ER that the fort was her very favorite thing about vacation. She loved the reenactments.

By day three we needed to give LB some down time and a chance to get a really good afternoon nap. We left him with the guys and the ladies spent the afternoon together. We had a really nice time mini golfing and had the whole place to ourselves most of the time. I copied my journaling done that same night, when all the details are fresh into an insert.

On the backside of the insert I continued Day 3's story, with a discussion about the pasties we ate for dinner that night. Pasties are a northern MI thing, miners used to take them to work and they were supposed to keep them full for a day's work.

At night we took a short drive to Harbor Springs for a walk to work off those pasties. We checked out the downtown park and beach, since we planned to go back the next day. E begged to just put her feet in, she'd been begging to go to the beach. Somehow she managed to get almost all the way into the water, which explains the clothing change in the pictures. The night ended with ice cream, how many a vacation day with my family does!

I haven't finished the week but only have one more major day to cover after I put the finishing touches on this one. I just have to add some journaling but since I was photographing my pages for the post I decided to go ahead and include it since it's 95% complete.

Before we left ER said the only thing she really wanted to do was go to the beach and on Wednesday she got her wish. It was the perfect little beach with free parking, three lifeguards, easily accessible bathrooms, and some shade! Since the big tourist season for the area didn't really kick off until the week after we were there it wasn't packed with lots of room to spread out.

It was great to have the park next to the beach so E could dig to her hearts content and I didn't have to sit in the sand! We didn't even have to drag out the umbrellas because we got there early enough to get a table under a nice big tree.

I'm hoping to finish up the week and be able to share it next week along with another week to get caught up but it's E's 6th birthday this weekend so I'm not too sure if it'll all get done!

Hi Katie,My name is Jane and I'm with Dwellable.I was looking for blogs about Petoskey to share on our site and I came across your post...If you're open to it, shoot me an email at jane(at)dwellable(dot)com.Hope to hear from you soon!Jane

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I love to do family friendly reviews and giveaways for products that make life better from the kitchen to the playroom and beyond. As a former teacher, I also enjoy reviewing learning materials. Click above or katiesnestingspot(at)live(dot)com

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